BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Pennsylvania lawmakers voted to tighten the state's school bus camera enforcement system Tuesday, in a bid to prevent $300 tickets being wrongly issued to drivers.
The reforms come after more than a year of reporting by Lehigh Valley Public Media on the automated enforcement program. The review found major disparities in how frequently police departments approved camera-generated violations and a backlog of thousands of appeals. The reporting also found the revenue-sharing arrangement between school districts and a private company operating the cameras has led to a lack of accountability and people wrongly being sent to collections.
State Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-Lehigh/Bucks, cited some of that reporting on the Senate floor Monday as he pushed for the change.
"We don’t just need to pay to have more hearing officers, you need to go to the root cause of the problem," Coleman said in a phone call Tuesday. "They have the tools to do it…and now they’re going to do it."
The Senate unanimously approved Coleman's amendment Monday. The amended bill passed the Senate 45-5 on Tuesday.
Under the amendment – attached to legislation to increase penalties for school bus drivers who get behind the wheel while under the influence – any automated stop-arm enforcement system would have to verify that the school bus driver complied with existing state requirements governing when a bus activates its warning lights and stop arm.
The new verification requirement would take effect one year after the legislation becomes law.
Coleman said the technology already exists to make the change.
He said GPS data can be used to verify that a bus traveled between 150 and 300 feet after activating its yellow warning lights and that the bus was no longer moving when the stop arm deployed.
The amendment itself does not specify those GPS measurements. It requires the system to verify compliance with the existing law.
"They want to do the right thing here," Coleman said of BusPatrol, the private company that operates camera systems for many Pennsylvania school districts.
"We have a chance to reform the bill to make it live up to its legislative potential," he said.
A program under scrutiny
Lehigh Valley Public Media's reporting has documented problems with the program since its expansion across the region.
An investigation found that Allentown police approved 8,598 school bus camera citations between September 2024 and October 2025 — about 96% of the alleged violations they reviewed. The program generated nearly $640,000 in fines during that period.
The approval rate differed sharply among neighboring districts. Salisbury police approved 42% of the violations they reviewed, compared with 58% in Bethlehem, 76% in Easton and 72% in Wilson.
Across Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, more than 19,500 citations were issued during the same 13-month period. About 11% were contested.
The reporting also examined the financial structure behind the program. Under Allentown's contract, BusPatrol receives a share of citation revenue and charges the school district technology fees. Each $300 citation also includes a $25 surcharge for the state School Bus Safety Grant Fund and a $25 surcharge for the local police department, which reviews alleged violations.
BusPatrol has defended the program, saying its cameras identify alleged violations but do not issue citations. The company says the final decision rests with sworn law enforcement officers.
But the reporting found substantial differences in how those alleged violations were ultimately approved by police departments, raising questions about how consistently the evidence was being evaluated.
The appeals process added another layer of concern.
Motorists challenging citations faced waits of months or longer for hearings as the number of appeals overwhelmed the state's hearing system. Additional inquiries found more than 16,000 appeals pending statewide earlier this year.
Coleman has repeatedly raised concerns about whether the system is operating as intended. In February, after meeting with BusPatrol representatives and observing officers review violations, he said he was concerned that the required 150-to-300-foot window for a bus to activate its yellow warning lights was not consistently evident in the videos he reviewed.
That concern is directly addressed by the new legislative language.
Rather than relying on a driver to challenge a citation after it has been issued, the amendment would require the enforcement system to verify compliance before the citation is generated.
'A reasonable safeguard'
Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, called the change a "reasonable safeguard."
"If we’re going to issue a $300 ticket through an automated system, the data supporting that ticket needs to be accurate, reliable and capable of being verified," Boscola said on the Senate floor Monday.
"It shows we can make practical improvements to this program while keeping student safety a top priority," she said.
The amendment does not eliminate automated enforcement or change the underlying requirement that motorists stop when required for a school bus displaying its flashing red lights and stop arm.
Instead, it adds a requirement for the technology used to document the violation.
Coleman said that distinction is important.
"We have a chance to reform the bill to make it live up to its legislative potential," he said.
The legislation now goes to the House for consideration. There is limited time for representatives to take action, however. Only five more session days remain on the legislative calendar in 2026.